The DSH Exam

Written Exam:

The written part takes approximately four hours and is divided into the following components:

Understanding of and working with an audiotext: The students are expected to prove their ability to understand an approx. ten-minute scientific lecture, to make useful notes and to work with them. The recording will be played twice.

Reading comprehension of subject-specific language structures: the students are expected to prove their ability to understand a subject-specific text of approx. two pages, that they can answer relevant questions and that they can interpret the presented information in an appropriate manner. Furthermore, they must be able to identify, understand and apply the subject-specific language structures in a given text.

Guideline oriented text production: The students are expected to be able to produce a coherent text of approx. 250 words in accordance with the guidelines (e.g. diagram, quotation, argumentative question) that relates to a specific topic.

A monolingual dictionary (but not on an electronic medium) is allowed to be used during the exam.

Oral Exam:

In the oral exam (if required), which takes place after the written exam, the students are expected to prove their ability to comprehend processes, issues and chains of thought autonomously, to deal with them verbally and to interact reasonably in a conversation. The oral exam is conducted in form of a conversation between the examiner and student to questions, which do not require prior special knowledge.

Certificate and DSH-levels

The certificate of the passed exam shows the results of each individual skill in percent and an overall result as DSH- level: